Kentucky Gov. Beshear will be Chase Commencement Speaker

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear will be commencement speaker for the spring commencement ceremony of Chase College of Law, when about 120 graduating students receive either Juris Doctor or Master of Legal Studies degrees. The ceremony, during which Northern Kentucky University will award Gov. Beshear an honorary Doctor of Laws degree, will begin at 6 p.m. May 9 in Truist Arena on the NKU campus.

“We are thrilled to welcome Gov. Beshear to the Chase community and honor the service he has delivered as a public servant and legal professional,” said Chase Dean Judith Daar. “As a law school graduate himself, our governor understands how important this milestone is for our students and their families.”

Gov. Beshear has long supported the growth of the Northern Kentucky region and its communities through economic initiatives and grants. This past year, he signed legislation that appropriated $125 million for the design and construction of the Commonwealth Center for Biomedical Excellence in Covington, the future location of Chase and the Northern Kentucky campus of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.

As a lawyer, Gov. Beshear practiced in private firms in Washington, D.C., and Kentucky prior to being elected Kentucky attorney general in 2016. As attorney general, he filed nine lawsuits in late 2019 against pharmaceutical companies, alleging their involvement in Kentucky’s opioid crisis. As that crisis developed, Chase independently created the Center on Addiction Law and Policy to develop new approaches on how law and policy can help reduce the human toll of addiction.

Gov. Beshear was elected governor in 2019 and re-elected in 2023, becoming only the fourth governor in Kentucky’s history to serve two consecutive terms.